Malingering
by Juni Cortez
Summary: [Matchstick Men] Roy's having trouble with his new partner, who can't seem to grasp the concept of showing up for work. Implied slash.


Malingering

A/N: Written in 50 minutes for the contrelamontre non-alcoholic beverage challenge, although said beverage doesn't really figure prominently in the story. Takes place way before the movie. Frank and Roy have only been working together for about a week.

Some things you could tell were doomed from the outset.  
  
Every day he invaded the office—forty minutes late, at least—scattering papers, abandoning coffee cups (no cream, 4 sugars), tossing his hat casually on Roy's desk as though the office were his and he had been doing this for all 22 years of his life, rather than the past week.  
  
And for the next hour or so, Roy would sit there and glower at him, glower as much as you could while blinking rapidly. The tics were worse when he was there, as though his eyes didn't want to witness this...this desecration of Roy's place of work. His office. His headquarters. His and not Frank goddamn Mercer's.  
  
So when Frank didn't show up one day (Roy determined this only after waiting a good three hours), he was relieved, so relieved he didn't even stop to wonder why. He sat in utterly spotless chair looking at his impeccably clean desk for twenty minutes or so, relaxing in the delicious silence that blanketed the place.  
  
Then it occurred to Roy that, personal feelings aside, he really couldn't work without a partner.  
  
He jabbed his pen into the buttons on the phone, glaring back and forth from the machine to the number, scrawled hastily on a scrap of paper smudged with dirt and stained with some indefinable pink substance.  
  
It rang. And rang. And rang. Finally, the machine picked up.  
  
"Frank? Frank, this is Roy, your partner, remember? This might be news to you, but we're supposed to be working as a team, so--"  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Frank!" he snapped, somehow angrier now that the man had answered. "What are you doing? Why aren't you here?"  
  
"Jesus," Frank replied hoarsely. "I'm fucking sick, OK?"  
  
"Oh." On the verge of hanging up, something occurred to Roy. "You're not conning me, are you?"  
  
"Fuck you! What do you think I am, an extra on ER? I'm not making any money pretending to be sick, Roy." He said the name as though it were synonymous with "moron."  
  
"You--you--" Roy stuttered, searching his curse-free vocabulary for an appropriate insult. "I'm coming over there!" Only after slamming the receiver down with such force that the entire phone seemed to jump did he realize what he'd just said.  
  
  
Fifteen minutes, three wrong turns, and two near-accidents later, Roy was at his (very temporary, he assured himself) partner's house. After waiting impatiently for someone to answer the door, he discovered to his surprise that it was unlocked. "One, two, three," he murmured as he opened it, unsure why he was bothering to whisper.  
  
Upon entering the house, Roy found himself fantasizing about burning the place down, vacuuming up the ashes, and placing them neatly in a nice, clean, plastic bag. Unfortunately, that would have to wait.  
  
"Frank!" he yelled, trying to navigate through the maze of cartons of Chinese food and empty (hopefully) beer bottles without having a seizure or sprinting to the car to get his Lysol.  
  
A faint groan came from the other room. Roy rushed in to discover his partner collapsed on a couch that looked almost as worn as its owner, which was saying a lot. "You really are sick," he observed, astonished.  
  
Frank--pale, barely breathing, much less moving--just looked at him.  
  
"I'm sorry," Roy blurted out, shocked into apology. Then, to cover it: "What do you have? Let me take you to the doctor."  
  
Frank shook his head vehemently. "Look, I'm fine. Under the weather, a little. Just leave me alone, OK? I didn't ask you to come over here."  
  
Roy debated this. "What are your symptoms?" he asked suspiciously.  
In response, Frank staggered to his feet, crossing the room with great difficulty, and gave Roy a weak shove. "Get out of here. I don't need you...standing here...blinking at me..." he swallowed hard at the end of the statement, looking slightly green. "Excuse me."  
  
Roy watched him dash off to what must have been the bathroom, wincing at the unmistakable sound of his partner retching into the toilet. Several minutes later, looking no better than before, Frank lurched back into the room. "Why're you still here?" he demanded, sinking back into the couch.  
  
Roy ignored the question, primarily because he had no good answer. "Look, you--you need fluids. Do you have anything besides beer?"  
  
Frank tried to look indignant, but only succeeded in appearing pathetically close to crying. Or vomiting. Or passing out. Roy wasn't sure which he'd prefer.  
  
"'Course I do!" Frank protested as Roy darted off to the kitchen without waiting for an answer. "Just...don't touch that milk. It's been there for like a month."  
  
Roy scanned the fridge frantically. Beer, Chinese food, aforementioned spoiled milk...the only other contents were a half-eaten apple and a juice box. "Water, then," he muttered to himself. He grabbed the cleanest glass he could find and raced back to Frank, not entirely sure why he was doing so. The man wasn't going to drop dead during the span of a few minutes.  
  
"Here, drink this. You need to stay hydrated." Without thinking, Roy knelt beside Frank and brought the glass to his partner's lips, watching as the other man, eyes shut like he was withstanding some kind of torture, gulped it down. When he'd drained the glass, Frank batted it away.  
  
"Gee, thanks, mom," he said, opening his eyes and staring sullenly at Roy.  
  
And, watching the man before him stuggling gallantly to mask his vulnerability with sarcasm, to maintain an attitude of non-chalance even when his own health was at stake, Roy suddenly realized he didn't want to get rid of the beer bottles or stock the fridge or leave the annoying bastard to his own devices so that he could wander in on Monday, forty minutes late, and pretend like nothing had happened.  
  
He wanted to get Frank another glass of water. He wanted Frank to drink it, wanted Frank to explain what was wrong, why he couldn't see a doctor, wanted to buy any and all medicine on the market and make sure Frank took it. He wanted to see Frank, asleep, peaceful, snoring softly (of course) and think about how the medicine was working and Frank already seemed better and he'd be back to work in no time.  
  
So he did.


End file.
